CULVER CITY, CALIF. (Feb. 21, 2014) – In an episode that aired today, 19-year-old Princeton University student Terry O’Shea won the JEOPARDY! College Championship, claiming $100,000 and a berth in the next Tournament of Champions. O’Shea, who is originally from Bridgewater, N.J., bested 14 other students representing colleges and universities nationwide.

“I feel dizzily happy, as if my blood has been replaced by soda pop,” said O’Shea after her win. “It felt even better because I wasn’t expecting it at all. Even going into the finals, I honestly believed I was going to get second place and it’s still difficult for me to comprehend that I actually won.”

An English major also pursuing a minor in French, O’Shea credits her education at Princeton for providing her with the ability to think quickly on her feet and to make educated guesses, skills that certainly came in handy over the course of the tournament.

“I’m not on a sports or other competitive team, so it was nice to finally get the chance to represent Princeton,” O’Shea said. “Of course, that means I also felt a lot of pressure to do well, since this was my one chance to make the university proud. It’s also exciting because no one from Princeton has won the College Championship before, so even if I never earn enough money to donate a building, I’ll always have this.”

Tucker Pope, a junior at Texas A&M University, placed second and took home $50,000, while Kevin Shen, a junior at the University of California at Berkeley, came in third and won $25,000. O’Shea said that one of the highlights of participating in the tournament was meeting her fellow competitors.

“It’s like the quote from ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’: ‘There are some things you can’t share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them.’ JEOPARDY! is our twelve-foot mountain troll,” she said.

To qualify for the tournament, prospective collegiate contestants took a 50-question online test; those who passed were selected at random to attend regional in-person auditions consisting of a second 50-question test, mock game play, and a brief interview.

Please visit JEOPARDY!’s interactive map for air times and stations nationwide.

JEOPARDY!, America’s Favorite Quiz Show® and its host, Alex Trebek, are celebrating 30 years of “answers and questions.” The top-rated quiz show in syndication, JEOPARDY! has become a pop culture phenomenon and holds the Guinness World Record for the most Emmy awards won by a TV game show (30 Emmys), as well as a 2011 Peabody Award. JEOPARDY! is produced by Sony Pictures Television, a Sony Pictures Entertainment Company; it is distributed domestically by CBS Television Distribution and internationally by CBS Television International, both units of CBS Corp. For more information, please visit Jeopardy.com.

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Press Contacts:           

Alison Shapiro | Senior Publicist | JEOPARDY! | (310) 244-6514 | alison_shapiro@spe.sony.com

Susie Eun | Publicist | JEOPARDY! | (310) 244-6517 | susie_eun@spe.sony.com